Distributed approximation algorithms via LP-duality and randomization

Book chapter, 2007

The spread of computer networks, from sensor networks to the Internet, creates an ever-growing need for efficient distributed algorithms. In such scenarios, familiar combinatorial structures such as spanning trees and dominating sets are often useful for a variety of tasks. Others, like maximal independent sets, turn out to be a very useful primitive for computing other structures. In a distributed setting, where transmission of messages can be orders of magnitude slower than local computation, the expensive resource is communication. Therefore, the running time of an algorithm is given by the number of communication rounds that are needed by the algorithm. This will be made precise below.